Sex

They Are Coming for Your Birth Control: No One Is Thankful For Birth Control Discounts

Gasp! Ten dollars off on a clinic visit? Say it ain't so!

Image: Newshounds.

Note: Think that anti-choice politicians and activists aren’t trying to outlaw contraception?  Think again.  Follow along in an ongoing series that proves beyond a doubt that they really are coming for your birth control.

Black Friday “door buster sales” often have people lining up and camping out in front of local department stores, with cash-strapped families ready to cash in on potential deep discounts.

In anti-choice land, that means women are crowding clinics looking for cheap abortions.

The newest outrage? Activist Jill Stanek believes she caught Florida Planned Parenthood offering discount abortions as a part of “Black Friday” celebrations. It makes a great headline — get it? Black? Like the hearts of those who support a woman’s right to reproductive healthcare? Because the email offer broadcasted $10 off a clinic visit, she took that to assume it was a financial abortion incentive.

There are a few problems with this conclusion, the biggest of which is that Florida has a 24-hour waiting period, which would make a coupon sent out near a Thanksgiving holiday worthless.

One thing that is easier to do around a holiday? Go see a doctor. Many working women with a day off on Friday following Thanksgiving might want to use that time for a check up, and would not have to arrange for time off. And with lots of family in town for support, they might be easily able to find someone to watch their children while they go to a clinic. As anyone with young children know, trying to attend a doctors appointment with toddlers or babies in tow is nearly impossible on your own.

You currently must have a clinic visit with a doctor once a year in order to obtain birth control. Perhaps that’s something anti-choice advocates didn’t realize, or maybe they simply don’t care.

Stanek told the Christian Post, “When you step back and look at the ad objectively, there is no legitimate clinic that offers ads like this for women’s healthcare…I mean we’re not talking about Lasik [eye] surgery here. This is about killing babies.” Michelle Smith, of East Texas Area’s chapter of Concerned Women for America agreed, saying, “Obviously the coupons are encouraging a lifestyle.” It’s that “lifestyle,” the one where people have sex without the potential to create children, that seems the most offensive to them all.

Meanwhile, I’m just going to extra thankful for clinic workers who put up with this sort of willful ignorance, since we are going to see a lot more of it in the next few years. After all, they are coming for your birth control.